Death of my hard drive is, well, it’s serendipity

Update 8/29/08: Back in Kent for a few days — enough time to do laundry and hit the road again for 3 more weeks. Tech Help called to say my MacBook has a new hard drive and is ready to go. I’m pretending I didn’t get the message. By the time I return, I’ll be itchin’ to get all digital again. Or not.

I promise to get that last segment of PR 101 up when I return. And I’ll tell you about the ‘business” part of my trip, which includes F2F discussions with some leaders in social media. Oh yeah — let’s not forget the Friday afternoon beerfest in the bleachers at Wrigley. Gives new meaning to “road trip.” I swear Belushi was there! He had to be.

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I’ll be on the road for the next month, or most of it. And thanks to the timely crash of my MacBook yesterday, I’ll be disconnected much of that time. I’m relieved, to be honest, and I’m not seeking a replacement laptop. I consider the crash to be serendipitous.

Regular readers know of my angst over being “too connected” and too wrapped up in the distractions of the online universe. Being computerless for 30 days might be the ideal remedy. Hell, I may even talk to some people face to face.

Oh, I’ll hit a public library here and there to check email and Facebook, and I’ll steal some Internet time from friends I see along my route. But instead of jumping online to browse blogs or check the feeder, I’ll be picking up a newspaper and testing my skills against the New York Times crossword puzzle — the paper version. Bring it on, Will Shortz. Give me your best Saturday punch. (Note: This photo comes from a great piece about Will that appeared in Reader’s Digest last year — classic old media!)

Because of my travels:

The 4th and final segment of my “PR 101” series — “Symmetrical PR meets the Cluetrain Manifesto,” will have to wait a few weeks, as you can’t compose a blog post on a paper notepad.

Comment approvals may be a little slow. I’ll check this site once a day until August 30. After that, I may not see it at all until Sept. 17.

I could tell you where I’m going, but it’s a secret mission tied to my one-semester professional leave. Yeah, I won’t be in the classroom poisoning young minds until January.

Was that a cheer I heard coming from Kent, Ohio?

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 9:26 am and is filed under Kent State, PR, PR Education, Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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5 Responses to Death of my hard drive is, well, it’s serendipity

Mac vs. PC debates are great traffic builders, but I’ll pass. I believe you wrote a post some time back about why you use a PC: because that’s what your employer supplies you. Same here, man. I live in a J-School where design and editing dictate computer choices. It’s one of the few places where the Mac still rules. Do they crash more often than PCs? Only in the minds of the PC cheerleaders. I’ve had a Mac for some 6 years now, and this was my first glitch.

Me? I couldn’t care less about which computer I use. Life’s too short. But you never saw Carrie Bradshaw using a PC, did you? Cool is cool.

You got that right, Matt. I am back home for a 3-day break in my travels. Still no laptop! Am I livin’ right or what? The first 10 days of my trip were interesting, as I worked with my research partner, Andy Curran, to interview 7-8 key figures in the social media scene — both in PR and outside of it. Unfortunately, the video will have to sit in the can for a few more weeks until Andy and I can get together for an editing pow-wow in late Sept. In the meantime, I hear some lobsters in Maine calling my name.

I will say that I experienced one of the great face-to-face social networks in America during this trip: Friday afternoon in the bleachers at Wrigley Field in Chicago. I’ve seen frat parties consume less beer!